by Tonya Brooks
The old man was right about that too. Damn right he was going to fight for her because there was no way in hell he wanted to live without her. He needed her like he needed music. Hell, he needed her more than music. That was a sobering thought and one he couldn't get out of his head. He could live without music, but he could not live without Cyn.
~~~~~
John must have fallen asleep on the couch in the music room because that's where he woke up when his nephew Jed came to get him. He took a quick shower, dressed and headed down to the melee that Sunday dinner was. As usual it was complete chaos.
Being part of a big, boisterous family was great, and he normally loved every minute of it. Today, not so much. It seemed everyone was excited about the recording contract and that was the main topic of conversation. He was bombarded with questions, teased and congratulated so many times it was ridiculous.
The more the subject was discussed, the more he could feel Cyn shutting herself off from him. He could actually see that damn wall that she was building between them and he was more determined than ever to tear it down brick by brick. Someway, somehow, he was going to convince her that they were meant to be together.
Once dinner was over, he led Cyn onto the verandah and asked, "Ready for that mud boggin' lesson, darlin'?"
"Not today," she denied in spite of the fact that she would love nothing better. Last night she had lain in bed and waited for John, but he never came to her. She had finally given in and went to his room only to find his bed was empty. Her mind had tormented her with images of him with another woman and she had cried herself to sleep.
Sweet baby Jesus, she'd broken the one rule she lived by and fallen in love. With a man destined to leave her. It was pathetic. Cyn knew that if she had any hope of making the break easier, she had to start putting some distance between them as soon as possible. That was easier said than done when they lived and worked together. "I already promised to hang out with Jed and Kylie."
"Okay," he agreed easily. "Sounds like fun."
"Not to be rude, but the kids aren't going to be happy about you horning in," she pointed out.
"Then I'll just hang out by the pool," he shrugged as if it were no big deal.
"Alright," Cyn agreed since she couldn't think of another excuse and she knew he was determined to keep his eyes on her all day. He sure as hell hadn't had his hands on her last night though.
John ran his callused fingertips gently down her cheek. "Missed waking up with you this morning."
"So who did you wake up with?" The bitchy question was out before she could stop it and Cyn was seriously pissed with herself for asking. Although she knew having her suspicions confirmed would only strengthen her resolve, it would also hurt like hell.
John was shocked at the question and it showed. "Darlin', you did not ask me if I was with someone else," he replied and wondered if she was intentionally trying to piss him off.
"You're right," she freely admitted and was relieved that she didn't have to know. "Totally inappropriate question."
"Damn right it was," he confirmed. "You're the only woman who's ever slept in my arms."
"That'll change," she predicted. Out of sight, out of mind and all that.
John was not about to let her piss him off even though she was doing a damn good job of it. "Finding a woman to share my bed is not a problem," he said bluntly and needed her to understand that he wasn't kidding. "Finding one that I want to wake up with is."
"Why?" She asked in surprise.
"Because I love you," he assured her with all the love in his heart.
Cyn couldn't think of a thing to say to that. Well, she could. Starting with, I love you and ending with, Please don't ever leave me. But she stubbornly refused to utter them aloud.
"Been thinkin' a lot about what you said," John admitted when she just stared at him mutely, those big blue eyes looking so vulnerable. "You were wrong about that transference shit."
"John, please don't do this," she pleaded. Her emotions were so raw and jagged that she didn't think she could handle much more.
"I didn't know what love really was till you," he confessed and saw her shocked expression. "You fill my soul with music, darlin'. No one else has ever done that.
She opened her mouth to refute the claim, but the words just would not fall from her lips. God, she wanted to believe it so bad. She wanted this to be real more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life.
Cyn had loved Jonah with the innocence of youth, and what she had felt for Mickey had been born of rebellion. But she loved John with a woman's heart. A heart that had been damaged too many times to willingly take a leap of faith. No matter how badly it hurt.
John leaned down and placed the softest of kisses on her parted lips. "Just thought you should know," he said gently and walked away.
Chapter Sixteen
Monday, June 9
John woke up alone again since the kids had insisted on having a sleepover with Cyn. Then she and Harley had appointments to have their nails done that afternoon. He'd tagged along and wished like hell he'd hadn't. Big mistake setting foot inside the nail salon. It seemed like he'd banged every woman in there in the past and they were all eager for a do-over.
Cyn had not been amused. She gave him the cold shoulder all night and once the club finally closed, had insisted they go home. When she had attempted to go to her room, he had steered her right into his and pressed her between his body and the door. "Wanna tell me what's goin' on in that pretty little head?"
"Not particularly." The time apart had been good for Cyn. It had helped her strengthen her resolve to back away before she got in any deeper. That idea was blown to smithereens the minute she had laid eyes on his handsome face. Seeing every woman in the nail salon eyeball fucking him, knowing that most of them had already had the privilege and wanted it again, shored up the walls that she had erected.
"What's got you in a mood, darlin'?" John asked patiently.
"PMS makes me cranky," she replied and figured that would send him running in the opposite direction. If nothing else it would give her another week of separation from him. Her period never lasted more than three days, but he did not need to know that.
"Uh huh," he nodded for lack of a better response. John didn't know a whole hell of a lot about PMS, and he sure as shit didn't want to. There really was such a thing as too much info. What he did know was there no hope of getting laid tonight. "What can I do to help?"
"Can you make cramps go away?"
"Nope."
"Remove bloating?"
"Nope."
"Make me stop being bitchy?"
He thought about that one. Steve swore that chocolate was the only thing that made living with his wife bearable when she had PMS. Made sense to John since chocolate was his magic cure all. "Would chocolate help?"
Her eyes lit up like he'd offered her diamonds. "It wouldn't hurt."
John placed a kiss on her temple and said, "Get ready for bed. I'll go raid the kitchen."
She was brushing her hair when he came back and shook the box to get her attention. "Ooh, Whoppers," Cyn moaned and reached for the box.
"Uh, uh," he denied and held it aloft. "Come to bed and I'll feed you."
"You'll what?" This was not what she had expected to hear. "John, we can't..."
"Nope, but we can still cuddle," he grinned as he grabbed her hand and pulled her to his bed. Once she was tucked in, John stripped off his clothes, slid into bed and pulled her against his side. He opened the box and pressed one of the chocolate covered malt balls to her parted lips. "See," he said with a simply adorable smile as she savored the treat. "I'm helping."
Sweet lovin' Lord, she didn't have a chance at resisting this man's charm. Just cuddling with him seemed even more intimate than sex. This was the last thing she needed while trying to keep her distance from him emotionally. But he was being so darned sweet and considerate that she just couldn't say no. Cyn knew that she was doomed.
Chapter
Seventeen
Tuesday, June 10
"Mornin', darlin'," John said as he woke her with tender kisses.
"Mornin'," she said with a sleepy smile.
"Love wakin' up with you," he said as his intense blue gaze held hers. "Love holdin' you while you sleep."
"Umm," she purred her agreement and snuggled against his big, muscular body.
"Wanna do this every day for the rest of my life."
Now he'd done it. John had ruined her mellow morning mood because she would love nothing better. "Don't say shit like that," she complained as she slid out of the bed.
"Can't help it, darlin'," John admitted and crossed both hands behind his head. "I love ya, so you'd better get used to hearing it."
"That's it," she growled and leveled a killing glare at him. "You don't really love me and it's cruel to both of us to keep insisting that you do. So just stop it, okay?"
"Way I see it, you're the one being cruel," he shot back as he sat up and draped his arms over his knees. "I'm just trying to love you and you keep pushing me away."
"Because loving you would destroy me!" Cyn shouted and then stormed into the connecting bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her. She leaned against the vanity and stared at the hollow eyes looking back at her.
John opened the door and said with so much sincerity that it nearly broke her, "I'd never hurt you, Cyn."
"You're hurting me right now," she confessed and closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to fall. She had to get him out of here before she completely lost it and agreed to anything he wanted. "I need to pee, so unless you want to get up close and personal with a tampon..."
The door clicked quietly shut and she sank to the floor, wrapping her arms around her up drawn knees as the tears rolled down her face. "I love you, too," Cyn whispered in agony.
~~~~~
Cyn had been avoiding him all day and John didn't know what to do about it. The woman was determined to push him away so he decided to give her some space in the hopes that it would help. He found her sitting out by the pool with Harley and said, "I need to run down to the club for a delivery. You okay with Pop giving you a ride to work?"
"I'll be fine," Cyn agreed. And she would be. One day. When her heart forgot how much she loved him. When her body forgot the feel of his. When her head forgot the sound of his voice. When her eyes forgot the beauty of his face. Maybe then she'd be fine. Today, was not that day.
"You want to talk about it?" Harley asked when they were alone again.
"Nope."
"It might help," she added persuasively.
"Might not."
"Well, it can't hurt," the older woman said in exasperation. John was rubbing off on her niece and she was starting to sound just like him.
"Yeah. It can," Cyn said as tears filled her eyes.
"Oh, Sweetie," Harley said regretfully as she reached over and wrapped her in a compassionate hug. "Tell me what's wrong."
"I love him, Aunt Harley," she admitted miserably. "I love him so much it hurts."
"That's wonderful," her aunt said happily as she pulled away and offered her a brilliant smile.
"It's awful," Cyn wailed and buried her face in her hands as sobs threatened to tear her apart. "He's l... leaving me and I d... don't want him to... go. I'm a h... h... horrible person!"
"No you're not," Harley insisted and handed her a napkin. "It's only natural that you'd want John to stay here with you, especially since your relationship is still so new."
"He w... wants me to... to go with him," she confessed and mopped at her face with the napkin. "B...But I can't d...do it. I just can't!"
"Of course you can't," she soothed. "You've got your own career to think about."
"Pffftt, I'd give it up in... in a minute if I th... thought this would last," she admitted.
Okay, now Harley was confused. "You mean you want to go on tour?" She queried.
"I just want to be with John," she sniffled, the crying jag over, she hoped. "He's p... p... perfect!" Cyn wailed and the crying jag was on again. This time Harley just held until she got it all out of her system. "He really is perfect. He sings me to sleep, wakes me with a kiss, and makes me see stars. Ya know?"
Well, Matthew didn't sing, but he did wake her with a kiss and make her see stars. She most assuredly did know what her niece meant because her own husband was just as perfect. "So why are you upsetting yourself like this?" She questioned.
"Geez, you've seen the way women throw themselves at him. Can you imagine how much worse it'll be when he's famous?" She complained.
"How many of those women have you seen John flirt with?" Was asked shrewdly.
"Well, none of them, but that's not the point," Cyn maintained stubbornly. "The temptation would always be there."
"Honey, if he loves you there won't be any temptation," Harley assured her. "A woman could strip naked and do the tango with Matthew and I wouldn't worry about him straying. I'd snatch her bald and slap him silly, but I wouldn't worry." Cyn couldn't prevent a laugh as her aunt had intended. "I told you the Baker men fall hard when they fall in love. Another woman would be the least of your worries."
"That rules out half the gender pool," she groused before she realized what she'd said.
"Oh, so you know about that, do you?" Harley asked in surprise.
Huge blue eyes met her aunts and Cyn asked in shock, "You know?"
"Mm hmm, I do," she confirmed with a huge smile. "But we don't discuss it because John doesn't realize we know his deep, dark secret. Sheesh. This family would love and support him if he brought home a three headed alien. The hell with what anyone else would think."
That they had both indulged in alternate lifestyles was another reason why she knew her niece and John would be a good match. Although Cyn had been very open about her same sex relationship, John had kept his a closely guarded secret. She hoped her niece could help him overcome those fears.
Which pretty much summed up the Baker family as a whole, Cyn realized. "I just don't think I could survive if I lost him," she admitted.
"Then ask yourself this, can you survive if you let him go?"
At this point, Cyn wasn't sure if she could or not.
~~~~~
John was too antsy to sit still. He'd prowled the club like a restless tiger, his eyes never leaving Cyn. Her smile was dimmer tonight, her laughter less frequent, and the sadness shown in her eyes. She was hurting, and it was his fault. That shit was killing him. He had so many emotions rolling through him and there was only one way that he knew to release them. He headed to the stage and picked up his acoustic guitar much to his customers delight.
When John opened his impromptu performance with She Don't Love You, She's Just Lonely, Cyn's heart broke all over again at the pain she heard in his voice. Letting him think she didn't love him was cruel and it was killing her to hurt him like this. She wanted to take a chance on him. God, she wanted it so much. But he was leaving, just like everyone else had.
If she went on the road with him and fell even deeper, she'd just wind up hurting that much more when it ended. Because loving a man like him would consume her heart and soul and she'd never survive when it was over and he walked away. Jonah and Mickey had hurt her, but losing John would crush her completely.
As soon as he heard the song, Alex knew exactly who was to blame for his best friend's mood. This shit had to stop. No way in hell was he gonna sit back and watch John lose his fire again. Especially not when their dreams were about to come true. He walked over to Cyn to demand, "What did you do to my boy?"
"Nothing," she denied and wasn't about to involve him in their mess.
"John never does a solo unless something has him by the balls," he complained. "Hell, he hasn't done anything like this since..."
"Since Rex died." Cyn finished softly.
Alex stared at her as if she had just sprouted another head. "He told you about that?"
"John told me... everything," She admitted vaguely since she did
n't know how much the drummer knew about John's relationship with Rex.
“There’s stuff that dudes don’t talk about. Shit we don’t need to know,” he said with a pointed look for her to keep the information to herself. “If he told you about Rex that means this shit between you is serious.”
“It’s not supposed to be,” she refuted even though she knew he was right.
“Girl, you need to understand a few things about my boy. John can touch an instrument and it comes alive. It’s not how he plays the music, it's because he is the music,” Alex explained. “Everything that the song makes you feel, the pain, the love, all of that emo shit is what he pulls out of himself. When he performs he gives away a piece of his soul.”
"Music is my life. The lyrics are my story," she said softly. Now she understood why he had chosen to have those words tattooed around his wrists.
“John has a gift like I’ve never seen before. Back in the day, the dude lit up a stage brighter than the sun and we would have followed his flame straight into hell,” he admitted. “Then shit went bad in Cali and he lost it. Something inside of him broke when Rex died, so we came back home and shit got worse. He stayed in the music room all night, every night, pouring his heart out on the fuckin' piano."
"My boy had never gone a day in his life without his guitar and it took him almost a year to touch one again. But he wasn’t the same after that,” Alex said regretfully. “Yeah, he was still awesome. Hell, with talent like that John can’t be anything but awesome. The spark that lit him up inside was gone until the grand opening when that fire came back and he was the old Johnny B. Bad again.”
“Because he found what he’d lost,” she deduced. "The club gave him something to be passionate about again."